Annoying Homonyms!

Let me write about how annoying #homonyms in the #Japanese language can be.
 
✅ Case Study
The story comes back to my recent interpreting assignment in an industrial context. After weeks of hard work installing and commissioning a machine, the client was ready to sit an acceptance test, called IPA (Installation Product Acceptance).
 
A few hours before the acceptance test, when everybody was under tremendous pressure (you would say fittingly in German “unter Strom stehen”) ⚡, the client noticed a worker intensively looking at the machine with an earnest look.

The client asked who this worker was. Guessing from conversations going on in the backyard, I answered:
 
“He must be somebody visiting for the Kenshu (#研修 - training) scheduled tomorrow.”
 
Hearing my answer, the client looked rather shocked. He was about to blow a fuse. 💥
“But the Kenshu (#検収 – IPA) is due today!”
 
Then, I realized we were talking about two completely different things. When pronounced, the Japanese terms for “training“ and “acceptance test” come out exactly the same including their intonation.
 
The client gave me a wry smile, saying “Japanese is difficult isn’t it (日本語は難しいね)”.
 
✅ Historical Background
These words are paradoxically called “Japanese words of Chinese origin“ (漢語表現).
While importing Chinese characters from mainland China in our early history, we got rid of the tonal modulation （四声） in the Chinese. In the end, originally different sounds were consolidated to the same sound in Japanese.
 
✅ Possible Remedies
In retrospect, I should have instead used #Katakana  (phonetic character) expressions like トレーニング (training) in such a tricky situation.
 
#language #expertise #English #japanese #german #TranslationServiceArai